The Latest on H1N1 Swine Flu

Achuyt Bhattarai, MD, of the CDC, and colleagues looked at shedding patterns
of the H1N1 virus during an outbreak at an elementary school in Pennsylvania in
May and June.

The researchers swabbed the noses and throats of 13 elementary school kids,
ages 5 to 9, who had a fever of 100 degrees or higher and a cough and/or
sore throat. Samples were also obtained from 13 of their flu-stricken family
members.

"Overall, we found the median duration of shedding to be six days, with a
minimum of one day and a maximum of 13 days," Bhattarai says.

The elementary school kids also shed H1N1 virus for a median of six days
after their fever struck, he tells WebMD.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases
Society of America (IDSA).

These and future findings will help health officials decide when children
should go back to school, says the University of Utah's Andrew Pavia, MD, head
of the IDSA's pandemic influenza task force.

The CDC recommends that children with flu-like symptoms stay home and not
return to school until at least 24 hours after they are free of a fever of 100
degrees or more without using fever-reducing medicines.

"While someone who has been without fever for 24 hours without use of
fever-reducing medicine can in fact shed virus, we don't believe they shed
enough virus to make others sick," says Thomas Skinner, a CDC
spokesman. "It's possible but not likely."

Pavia notes that the swine flu appears to act quite differently than the
seasonal flu. Young people with swine flu tend to get sicker than older adults,
the opposite of what happens with seasonal flu.

The bottom line: make sure your children get the H1N1 vaccination, which is
very safe, says Bruce Gellin, MD, MPH, director of the HHS National Vaccine
Program Office.

"This is clearly a novel virus, but it's not a new vaccine. The swine flu
vaccine is made exactly the same way as the seasonal flu vaccine" and there are
no differences in terms of safety, he tells WebMD.